Jackson Free Press

There's a scene in C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" series where Susan asks wise old Mr. Beaver if Aslan, Narnia's lion Christ-figure, is a tame lion--whether he's "safe."

"'Course he isn't 'safe,'" Mr. Beaver replied. "But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

I've been thinking of this scene often, over the past few years, when people ask if Jackson is a "safe" city to live in. Crime is a serious, chronic problem that every major city has to deal with. Obviously, Jackson is much more "safe" than it was in the early '90s with respect to the homicide rate, and more "safe" than it was post-Katrina with respect to the carjacking rate, but I don't think most white city residents who ask this question really want to look at crime statistics. They're wondering if the city is still going to accept them now that the city has, for the most part, a black identity.

Six of the seven Jackson City Council wards are majority-black, and the 2010 census tells us that 19,000 white residents left even as 7,500 new black residents came in. The city's so black that the Mississippi Legislature has been discriminating against it--spending extra money to put the Department of Revenue in majority-white Clinton instead of majority-black Jackson, attempting to remove downtown Jackson from city oversight and place it under state control, and attempting to place a state-run commission in charge of its infrastructure spending.

When Gov. Phil Bryant half-joked about wanting to wheel the Capitol building out to Rankin County, he was just expressing the same urge that tens of thousands of other white-flighters have felt over the past few decades. He hates the fact that he has to do his work in a city that's under black leadership--a city that isn't "safe."

Those of us who love Jackson know something that the city's critics don't: Jackson isn't "safe," but it's good. The good black leadership we have enjoyed under Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. has been infinitely better than the "safe" white leadership we experienced under the previous administrations of good-old-boy politicians. And now, with Chokwe Lumumba, we have the opportunity to elect a radical black intellectual who is completely committed to going a step further and building a self-sustaining city economy--not a "safe" economy that returns control of the city to suburban developers and their allies in the Legislature, but a good economy that trusts our supermajority-black community with control over its own money, property and culture.

The only catch is that if Chokwe Lumumba is elected, it will probably be with very little white support. That's a huge step. Even Johnson, whose critics have inexplicably painted as a black nationalist for 20 years, worked hard to reconcile the old, "safe" power structure and the democratic wishes of the city. Lumumba, who repeats the word "self-determination" like a mantra, isn't interested in that. And for those of us who grew up accustomed to the idea that white people hold 50 percent (or more) of Jackson's power even if they only make up 20 percent of the population, this might seem a little scary.

But it's the right thing to do. Jonathan Lee's supporters have adopted "Love Jackson" as their motto; if we really love Jackson, we need to trust Jackson to make its own decisions. We need to give up on the idea of keeping it "safe," and have faith in the fundamental goodness of the people of this city. We need to recognize that the old power structure made promises it couldn't keep, and destroyed lives in the process. If you love a person but want to control them, that's not a healthy love. If you love a person but don't respect them, that's not a healthy love. Loving Jackson--really loving Jackson--means trusting Jackson.

Trust Jackson. Vote for Lumumba May 21.

Todd Head is a local Jackson writer and an occasional columnist for the Jackson Free Press. His opinions are his own. The Jackson Free Press is not endorsing either Chokwe Lumumba or Jonathan Lee in the May 21 Democratic runoff.